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Updated on March 11 to include the latest cyber attacks to Israeli Websites by @CabinCr3w and Anonymous Crkvina

As reported on the last update, it looks like the Cyberwar between Israel and the Middle East (most of all Iran) has come to an apparent truce, at least from the Israeli Site. A trend confirmed also in this last period in which Israel did not perform any Cyber action, but suffered several sparse attacks (mostly defacements) and a new DDoS against AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) with a new threatening message from the Anonymous. In the same time, many other countries all over the world suffered cyber attacks in name of the so-called #OpFreePalestine. These attacks were mainly carried on by a crew called Pak Cyber Pyrates who also defaced the isreaeldefenceforces.com webiste.

Is the static position of Israel a possible prelude for an Israeli Military Action against Iran in the real space? According to a panel of experts the chance that the United States or Israel will strike Iran in the next year is 48 percent.

But Israel and Iran are not the only unstable zones in the Middle East Cyber Space: a new cyber war front is raising in Lebanon, which has become the target of several cyber-attacks, carried on by hacktivist hacking groups stressing the need of more democracy, rather than by foreign countries.A front joined by the Anonymous who declared the start of #OpLebanon.

Last but not least, although not reported on the chart, I also found a Lebanese Cyber Army that hacked several Facebook accounts belonging to Israeli people.

At this link the complete timeline at the Middle East Cyberwar Timeline and follow @paulsparrows for the latest updates.

The #OpMegaupload and its subsequent Cyber Attacks all over the world, are diverging the attention from what is happening in the Middle East where the Cyber Conflict between Arab and Israeli Hackers is proceeding at an apparently unstoppable pace which forced me to post an update for the events occurred in the last week.

The rapid escalation of personal information leaks which characterized in the first two weeks of January has slightly changed shape, being replaced in the third week by Defacements and DDoS campaigns (targeting also the web sites of two Israeli Hospitals, as to say that a Cyber Geneva Convention is needed). Other dumps has also occurred, but not of the same scale as the first two weeks of January.

Besides the mutual DDoS and defacements to each other web sites, so far a quick calculation shows that since the beginning of this cyber war Arab Hackers have dumped more than 410,000 Credit Cards and 170,000 accounts, while the Israeli Counterparts have published approximately 11,000 Credit Cards, details of 140,000 individuals and 105,000 emails. Even if these data have to be taken with attention since many records have proven to be duplicated or fake, one consideration is clear: even Cyber Wars have their digital casualties.

I tried to summarize the chain of events that is characterizing the Cyber Escalation in the Middle East. I collected the information from several sources in order to provide a detailed picture of what is happening between Israel and the Arab Countries since the initial claim of 0xOmar. Observing the evolution of the chart, the Cyber conflicts seems to follow the same rules than real wars: innocent victims, propaganda and psyops, different paths of escalation and guerrilla tactics. This Cyber Conflict in Middle East is probably crossing the line: from now the landscape will not be the same anymore.

From the initial action of 0xOmar to the Israeli reaction, passing through the declaration of Cyber Jihad (the chart is updated to Sunday, the 22nd of January), (too) many events have happened, involving different hacking crews, different countries (also some French and Canadian web sites have been defaced) and different kind of attacks. What was started as an endless chain of massive leaks seems to be evolving as isolated actions typical of guerrilla.

Follow the line of a Cyber conflict that, similarly to the real one occurring in the Middle East, appears far from being solved…

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In this blog I express my personal opinion, which does not necessarily reflects the opinion of my organization, about events and news or interest, concerning information security, winking to mobile world and, why not, to some curious personal event.

Every information is reported with its source.

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